P.S. confirmation a bit later, the forum just came back to life.
I confirm. I somehow didn't notice Tazar's spell power, which was 20 and 400 mana points, and he grouped all troops in one corner, so the meteor shower decided everything in the first round. :( :( :( :( :( :( :( I had no secondary towns because the only road led to the opponent, and through underground treasure at that!!! I thought that after defeating many wyvern monarchs I'd at least come out to a secondary town on the fourth one, but I ended up almost at the enemy respawn! The earth book and titan armor... the combination of these two things is always unpleasant, especially at the beginning of the second month... and my total stats were almost the same as Tazar's.
Thanks for the game.